The talking heads have been going crazy over the last few days proclaiming the imminent doom of the Kerry candidacy. I’m worried about his path, but far from convinced the he’s out of the picture. More importantly, though, I want to know why the perception that the GOP convention was more successful is so pervasive. That’s why I find this graphic interesting.

There are striking differences in what the Democrats and Republicans talked about at their respective conventions. And to some extent, that’s no surprise. We all knew on some level that the Republicans would banter about a word like “freedom,” even if the Patriot Act compromises it, and we all knew that the Democrats would spend a lot of time talking about jobs. But dig a little deeper than that. For all the Republicans’ claims that they had a positive agenda that the Democrats lacked, few of their most used words are “issue words.” But jobs and health care are very clearly issue words, and the Democrats loved them. The only exception is “war,” which was so used by both sides that it’s hardly fair to consider it the territory of one or the other party.

Of course, the Democrats had lots of rhetorical buzzwords too. To be frank, words like strength, hope, and courage mean nothing to me, and I could care less who bandies them about unless they refer to specific policies. But seriously, is it fair to say the Democrats are issueless when the prominent things being talked about by the Republicans are just meaningless buzzwords and the name of their opponent?

Normally, I expect more out of the pundits. Maybe my hopes are just too high. But the more I watch election coverage, the more convinced I am that the voting public wants one thing and claims they want another. For all our complaining about negative campaigning, pandering, and useless rhetoric, the Fox-ization of America has made us unable to digest anything more nourishing. Our lowest common denominator culture has given us a political process where discussing the issues is bad and challenging TV hosts to a duel makes your opinion just that much more valid. (anyone else catch that clip with Chris Matthews and Zell Miller?)

In other news, Alicia’s dad has decided he can bring himself to vote for neither Bush nor Kerry. I guess that leaves him the Libertarian candidate. And in a country where politics work like this, is it any wonder?

Posted on September 8th, 2004 by Lee
Filed under: Uncategorized